Everyone is rightly giving kudos to page 3, but no one has mentioned page 5 with the spooky light and shadow from different directions. I gather it is from the same time distortion of the sun moving across the sky.

@tpete - Another bit of evidence that may lend a little veracity to my 'they spun the Earth around real quick-like' theory: the column of psychic energy that's shooting up into space in episode 80's last page.

It's obviously being observed from far off, as the city skyline in that first panel shows. This is a BIG thing they did.

But MORE importantly: it shoots off away at an angle to the Earth. Even more importantly, if you hold a good straight edge up to that beam, it is slightly CURVED.

This implies even more strongly the distortion of the Coriolis Effect - the force of the 'push' is being distorted by the suddenly increased velocity of the world's new (if so very temporary) rate of rotation. Between that and the already oblique angle from which it is projected, it would seem to indicate a big boost to the angular momentum of Earth's spin.

In billiard terms, ironically, they put a little 'english' on the world. Which is really all it would take to utterly fuck up everything right quick.

[ Mind you, I'm just postulating here - not trying to second guess Warren at all. At this point, I'd read Freakangels rabidly, even if it was nothing but raw script posted to LiveJournal. Missing out on Paul and company's artwork would be a damned crime, but for this story, I'd commit that crime. Then bitch viciously about not being able to have cake and eat it too...]

@Berserker: that was my point! No of course it wouldn't affect gravity (that much) but if the spin rate had been increased to the amount indicated in the panels (so a day goes by in what, minutes, seconds - do the maths!), the effects would be *far* more dramatic - leading to the angels themselves and assorted other objects, being flung off at a tangent (that word again!). Thats more than putting a little english on the world ...

My comment about the tides was meant to refer to the fact that if the earth's rotation is increased (while the Moon's gravitational effect remains the same) you will see a dramatic change.

But I kinda hope that really isn't the explanation, because one of the many things I like about Warren Ellis's work is his respect for science and even if we head into 'its a tear in the space-time continuum' territory, thats vastly preferable to fucking with Newton's laws!

@ Prof Structure - I don't know...I'm still not too convinced that increasing the spin of the Earth, even so much as shown there, would make anything 'fly off' the planet. Gravity will be just as powerful, regardless of rotational speed.

Of course, sneak046 brought up Luke's mention of the three minute time shift between Whitechapel and the Suffolk Coast in episode four( and in fact, his entire speech on the nature of time there-in ). While I'd love to know exactly how Luke sorted that out, it hints at something a little weirder than just speeding up the world. And it seems like second nature to the 'Angels to muck about with Newton's Laws...

At this point, we still haven't really been told or shown enough to say exactly what they did - all we can do is have fun trying to second-guess Warren until it is explained. If it's ever explained. Doesn't need to be really, for the purposes of the story.

I'm still not too convinced that increasing the spin of the Earth, even so much as shown there, would make anything 'fly off' the planet

An object (like the space station) in Low Earth Orbit makes one complete revolution around the Earth in about 90 minutes.

Low Earth Orbit is only 300km above the surface of the earth, whereas the earth's radius is 6,000km: so, it's so low that its orbital characteristics are virtually the same as at earth's surface (except only for the presence of atmosphere).

In other words, if the earth were rotating once every 90 minutes, then objects at its equator would be in orbit. Even more so if it were rotating once per minute: objects would be flying off.

@Berserker - gravity just ain't that powerful! Tie a brick to a piece of string, whirl it round your head and consider what happens when the string breaks. In that case the centripetal 'force' is balanced by the tension in the string, which is basically just the electromagnetic force (a lot stronger that gravity). The c-force is proportional to vel squared, so if the angels are sat there watching the stars whirl and the sun rise and set in, what, 5-10 mins, that means a c-force/acc over 20,000x what it is now, so around 700 m per sec sq , which means they'd be well and truly buggered (unless I;ve done the math wrong, which is quite likely on a sun morning... and of course, I've not taken the vectorial nature into account. Of course ...!)

Or, much better, as Fan says - consider the space stations of the world ...

And I really hope that the it isn't all fucking with Isaac, 'cos as Mr Ellis well knows, this isn't a Newtonian world, so to do something that would even give the appearance of f w i they would have to mess with general relativity/quantum gravity and such (!), which is much more fun.

Like you say, the time shift thing is interesting and although the story will still be brilliant if what they did is only hinted at, it'll be less so if its something akin to Superman flying round the earth counter clockwise and very very fast in order to turn back time ...!

I know this is going to sound like I'm on psychotropics, but what's to say the FreakAngels didn't actually affect the Earth, so much as the entire universe. Warren seems to love occasional reality warps and dimensional collapses.

Either way, episode 0081 is SO FUCKING COOL! also, I have to say it: "There is a god!" = D

Well, what if it wasn't time that was a bit off, like Luke had noticed, and that it was just the devices that they measure it by that were being effed up by something the Freakangels did when they spun the world around?

I don't know what they have left for time pieces, if it is something as complicated as a wind up clock, or measuring how far down a candle burns. Maybe some analog/digital wrist watches still function? I think electromagnetics mess with the later. It would also mess with radio reception, which would explain why it is so damn hard to communicate with the rest of the world, assuming there is anyone out there left to communicate with. I don't think I recall KK ever having a compass on the dash of her helibike thing, or on Jack's boat, but that would be something else it would muddle with.

Who knows, maybe Big Ben still works. I read somewhere it ran on time through the Blitz. Breaking physics and the Blitz are, however, slightly different matters. If there is some way around the physics of everything flying off the face of the earth when Mark spun it on his finger like a basket ball, I'd hope there is a possibility it still ran. The 'bat cave' bell foundry made bells for clocks like Big Ben...but who knows what is going on. I guess the main point this week was to jab us into realizing a lot more than society has collapsed.

I guess the main point this week was to jab us into realizing a lot more than society has collapsed.

What it does for me is give the impression that whatever they did can't be undone.

I mean, if they have power enough to melt the planet's icecaps or something, then they have power enough to freeze them again. But they can't undo this because they don't even know what they've done.

Also, the spinning implies that a lot of time has passed (irreversibly), during which a lot is happening / has happened, which they are/were powerless to affect (if they're currently frozen in time while the rest of the world is moving on with the disaster).

I got my dual-signed Volume Three in the mail. I still wish it was quad (really five--read on) signed, adding in the signatures of Alana Yuen and Kate Brown. I will pay to send it back to England for the other two signatures if someone can figure it out. I love the story and the art, but I love the color work too. If I could get the chief mechanic's signature too, I'd be in heaven. Contact me at phorgan1@yahoo.com. I'm a friggin genius for likin' this stuff. There's some cool stuff in there. I love the intro to each character at the beginning of it. Then I read this episode which, at the end, follows immediately after the last panel of Volume Three. Perfect. They didn't spin the earth faster because it wouldn't have slowed down yet. Plus, if it spun fast enough to turn the stars into streaks, the surface (and much of the rest of) the earth would have exceeded orbital velocity. It would have destroyed the planet. Can we get KK off the edge of the roof?